Anti-Castro terrorist was CIA informant, declassified documents show

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
An anti-Castro operative, who has admitted planting bombs against civilian targets in Cuba, and currently faces immigration fraud charges in the US, was a CIA informant, newly declassified documents show. Five CIA memoranda from 1965 and 1966 reveal that Luis Posada Carriles, code name “A15”, acted as an information link between Langley and violent anti-Castro groups in Miami, Florida, in which he was active. The five documents were declassified by the CIA between 1998 and 2003 and were made public on Tuesday by Peter Kornbluh, who heads the National Security Archive’s Cuba Documentation Project at George Washington University. Remarkably, the documents show that Posada’ handler at the CIA, Grover T. Lythcott, believed that the Cuban exile was a “moderate force” who could be counted on not to embarrass the US government or the CIA with his actions. But Posada later went on to mastermind the bombing of Cubana de Aviación Flight 455, which was blown up on October 6, 1976, killing all 73 people on board, including the entire national Cuban Fencing team that had just won all the gold medals in the Central American and Caribbean Championship in Trinidad. Posada has also admitted planting bombs in hotels in Havana, and is accused of a host of related activities, including trying to assassinate Fidel Castro in Panama in 2000. Posada is still wanted in Venezuela and Cuba in connection with the bombing of Cubana Flight 455, but the US has so far refusing to extradite him.